Beach Finale

I can hear the ocean from where I’m sitting, on the deck of our guest house in Plettenberg Bay.  There’s not a cloud in the bright blue sky and although it’s nearly gin and tonic time the sun on my neck still feels hot. Tonight’s the last night of our month long travels around the Western Cape region of South Africa and we could easily stay longer and travel more around this beautiful country.

View of Lookout Beach, Plettenberg Bay, from town

Our guest house in Plettenberg Bay

Plettenberg Bay has exceeded expectations. Instead of a commercialised resort stuffed with high rise apartments we found a small seaside town with careful low level development and stunningly beautiful beaches.   Most of the town’s residential properties have been built on hills and even Main Street, the town’s shopping street, is quite a hike up from the beach.  Our guest house owner says many of the properties around Plettenberg Bay are holiday homes, occupied for only a few months of the year, so we’re pleased to have avoided the December January holiday season. 

From our guest house it’s a short stroll to the magnificent Robberg Beach.  Gordon’s been enjoying early morning runs here and then later, after breakfast, before the sun gets too hot, we’ve walked along this almost deserted beach.   The waves are rather vigorous but we’ve seen a few swimmers and surfers in the water.  With no lifeguard on this beach, and not being familiar with currents and tides, we’ve been advised not to swim but not far away is a safer and calmer beach perfect for swimming.

Robberg Beach at Plettenberg Bay

View of Robberg Beach

Robberg Beach to ourselves

Although we’ve only been here a few days, Plettenberg Bay tops our list of places we could visit again and stay for several months.   The well-heeled tourist population ensures there’s a surprising number of restaurants, so there’s been no shortage of good food.  Today’s lunchtime oysters were superb!  Time now to pack the suitcases and prepare for the four flights that will get us from George to London.  Totsiens South Africa, we’ll be back.

Wine via Tram and Safari

Franschhoek and Stellenbosch are both enormously enjoyable to visit (especially for wine lovers like us) but each has a uniqueness that is hard to quantify. We spent four days in each, both times staying in guest houses out of the towns. Obviously what they have in common are vineyards and glorious sunshine, but both towns have quite a different feel.

Stony Brook Vineyards in Franschhoek: we stayed in a rustic cottage here

Wine tram in Franschhoek 

Huguenot monument in Franschhoek

At Le Bri we tasted wine paired with biltong

Starting off the day with morning sparkling wine tasting at Le Lude

In Franschhoek we used the Wine Tram to visit vineyards and this was a lot of fun and meant we could both sip and slurp wine without the worry of having to drive afterwards. The tram (which is sometimes a bus made to look like a tram!) follows a variety of routes to the vineyards and we hopped on and hop off at hourly intervals and stopped for longer to enjoy superb lunches with gorgeous views. The most memorable thing for us is that the background music played on the tram as it meandered around Franschhoek is the music we listened to growing up in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. This transported us to another era and made for a very happy experience….ok, maybe the wine helped a bit! Famous for its cuisine, Franschhoek did not disappoint…superlative meals at Foliage and Roca (Dieu Donne vineyard) to name just two. The Huguenot monument and museum in Franschhoek was well worth a visit, describing the hardship endured and bravery required of settlers in the 1600s coming here from Europe.

Beautiful Franschhoek

The short drive from Franschhoek to Stellenbosch is very scenic, through mountains with vineyards dotted around on the slopes everywhere you look. About a ten minute drive outside Stellenbosch we stayed at a delightful B&B run by an English couple…stunning terraced gardens with magnificent views over the neighbouring wine estates. We could quite happily have chilled out beside their pool for four days but there was the serious business of wine tasting to get on with. We spent a very happy few hours bouncing around in a safari vehicle, touring the vineyards at Waterford Wine Estate, stopping for tasting sessions while surrounded by vines. We had a great lunch and tasting session at Delheim Wine Estate, having fun doing blind tastings (only between the two of us…no public humiliation). We liked the atmosphere in historic Stellenbosch which happily accommodates tourism and students and were wowed by the spectacular Botanical Gardens.

Stellenbosch vineyard views from Mana B&B

A magical setting for breakfast at Mana B&B

At Stellebosch Botanical Gardens

Wine safari

Sampling grapes at Waterford Wine Estate

Our guide setting up wine tasting in the vineyards at Waterford Wine Estate

Serious wine tasting at Delheim Wine Estate...blind tasting and making notes!

After twelve days in the Cape Winelands we headed out east of this region on a winding road that climbs a mountain behind Franschhoek. Stopping at the top there’s a breath-taking view of the valley and vineyards below. We feel sure we’ll be back.

Franschhoek valley 

Food, glorious food....

We are eating and drinking our way round the Cape. Daily Gordon pours over a borrowed Platter’s Wine Guide (thanks Julian) identifying which wines we should taste where and now he’s checking off how many of the country’s top restaurants we’ve eaten at so far. We’re unable to pass up the opportunity to buy very good wine at a fraction of what it would cost in Europe, so our hire car is bit like a cellar on wheels. I fear we are just going to have to drink the stuff before we leave at the end of the month. 

Serious business of wine guide perusal

A meal of note: in Paarl we had a superlative five course dinner, with wine to match each course, in a grand setting at Bosman’s Restaurant. Chandeliers, top notch service, rose petals on the table (it was Valentine’s Day) and a pianist playing tunes from the 1980s…..not everyone’s cup of tea, but we loved it. Most of our fellow diners were mature (that means older than us!) but we were focused on what was placed in front of us. I’m not ashamed to say I photographed some of the plates they were so visually stunning. We loved everything about Bosman’s.

Pre dinner bubbly on the terrace at Bosman's Restaurant

View of the mountains beyond Paarl from the terrace

The prettiest of cheese courses..wafer thin gorgonzola + fancy bits

By the end of our month’s holiday we might well have consumed our body weight in biltong. For those unfamiliar with this Southern African delicacy, it’s air dried meat. It bears no relation to American jerky (which I think looks and tastes like brown plastic) and Gordon and I never tire of eating it having been introduced to it during our upbringing in Zimbabwe. We like our biltong on the moist side with fat (it can be bought in varying degrees of dryness and leanness, a few choices of animal and often chilli flavoured) and as soon our current grease-marked paper bag looks less than half full, we restock. We tell ourselves that there are worse snack foods out there.

Biltong....delicious stuff

I can’t not mention yesterday’s lunch at Foliage in Franschhoek. Our table adjacent to the open kitchen was perfectly placed to see the swiftness with which the chefs created delectable plates of food. With the memory of Bosman’s feast still fresh in our minds (that meal being less than 24 hours earlier) we were unprepared for such a delicious lunch. Haute cuisine indeed. Photographic evidence submitted below! It goes without saying that we washed it down some exceptional wine. Sorry to harp on about food but we do love it so.

The kitchen at Foliage restaurant, Franschhoek

My lunch

Cape Peninsula and further afield

Today is Sunday and we are almost half way through our month's holiday here in South Africa. Since last Sunday we've covered several hundred kilometers, moving south of Cape Town to Noordhoek and Simon's Town (in the Cape Peninsula) and then up the coast north of Cape Town to the small coastal settlement of Jacob's Bay. Yesterday morning we left Jacob's Bay and are now in Paarl. Like Stellenbosch and Franschhoek, Paarl is a well known area in the Cape Winelands. This morning's activity was an interesting tour around the famous KWV winery and of course tasting afterwards, which resulted in a a few purchases! Tonight we are sampling SA haute cuisine with a Valentine's Day dinner at Bosman's Restaurant. 

A brief outline of our last 7 days:

From Cape Town we drove to Noordhoek: Noordhoek isn't far from Cape Town and the road hugs the coast, climbing high above sea level, giving stunning views over the ocean. Rounding a bend the first view of Noordhoek beach is a surprise....white white sand and the beach stretching out for several kilometers, wonderfully pristine with no buildings or man made features.  The day we walked here we only saw a few other people.

Noordhoek beach, Cape Peninsula

We visited Cape Point Vineyards in Noordhoek for our first SA wine tasting experience, followed by lunch. As most of you know, our time here overlapped with Graham and Ann's holiday, so we met at Cape Point Vineyards and enjoyed a delicious lunch together.

Lunch with Graham and Ann at Cape Point Vineyards, Noordhoek

view of Simon's Town

2 days in Simon's Town: another early morning start reaped rewards. From our guest house near Simon’s Town it was only a half hour scenic drive to the national park which covers the southern part of the Cape Peninsula. The coast road south from Simon’s Town has beautiful views of False Bay and then turns inland and climbs to reach the park entrance and soon after that we were at the car park at Cape Point. Neither Cape Point or Cape of Good Hope are the most southerly point of the African continent, but they are the most southern point of the Cape Peninsula. We set off on foot on the uphill path to the lighthouse at the top of the cliff at Cape Point…there’s a funicular but it was out of service this day! We saw only a few other visitors as we trudged up the steep path, stopping repeatedly to take photos of the stunning views of the Cape of Good Hope and surrounding cliffs. Words can't do this justice.

Cape of Good Hope from Cape Point

path to the new lighthouse and old one high up in the background

the lighthouse at Cape Point (newer one, nearer the sea)

It only took about 15 minutes to reach the top of Cape Point and the old lighthouse which is no longer in use (it was built in the 1850s but was too high up for ships to see in bad weather). Having got our breath we set off on the Lighthouse Keeper's Trail, a walk to the new lighthouse lower down. This was a hot walk in the baking sun but the views near the tip of the peninsula and the dramatic cliffs were spectacular. By the time we got back to the car park the whole area was teeming with people and buses and we congratulated ourselves for having made an early start and enjoyed the views and walks on our own. Somehow scenic places are just not the same when you have to sidestep people and listen to their chatter.

North of Cape Town: after a few days in the Cape Peninsula we drove north of Cape Town and stayed in a small residential settlement called Jacob's Bay on the west coast where all the homes are painted white and instantly reminded us of the Greek islands. Klokkiebosch guest house was delightful surprise, the owner having a penchant for refined and elegant European decor. From Jacob's Bay we visited Paternoster, a bit larger and more of a tourist destination than Jacob's Bay, but with the same white houses. We had a wonderful walk along the breezy beach at Paternoster in brilliant sunshine and then a gourmet lunch at The Noisy Oyster (sadly no oysters as the recent red tide has made shellfish unsafe to eat).

Paternoster

At Klokkiebosch Guest House, Jacob's Bay

The garden at Klokkiebosch Guest House, Jacob's Bay

Life in the Sun

How good it is to be in the African sunshine!  Here in the Cape it's been hot and sunny since we arrived and we're enjoying lazy days and new surroundings, torn between wanting to see everything but reminding ourselves this is impossible.

Just over a week ago we were in Horsham, closing up the suitcases and eager to get to Heathrow for the first leg of our journey.  After a short stop in Johannesburg, meeting up with long standing friends (thanks Jacqui and Les, so good to see you) we flew to Cape Town four days ago.

with Jacqui and Les

Cape Town is stunningly beautiful, with iconic Table Mountain towering over the city below.    On our first morning we walked into the city from our guest house, an easy thirty minute stroll.  The African sun beats down with much more intensity than you experience in Europe so it wasn't long before I started to wilt.  After a bit of a wander we hopped onto a sightseeing bus and spent the next few hours admiring Cape Town's surroundings from the top of a double decker bus.  Whilst a good way to see the sights, the heat and wind felt like we were in a tumble dryer.  We left the bus to spend a happy hour in Hout Bay and came across a fisherman feeding seals in the harbour.  These handsome animals rolled and played near the quayside, a wonderful sight.  Sitting on the deck of a simple harbour cafe we lunched on the freshest calamari and considered our good fortune in being here.

Table Mountain from Victoria and Alfred Waterfront

Fisherman feeding a seal in Hout Bay harbour

The views from Table Mountain are spectacular.  An early start was well rewarded and being amongst the first visitors to the top of the 1000m mountain (via cablecar, not on foot!) added to our enjoyment.  We spent a tranquil hour following paths on top of the mountain trying to capture on camera the vast landscape spread out below, visible for miles. A memorable experience.

View from Table Mountain, cloud covering the sea

Cape Town's famous Victoria and Alfred Waterfront was nicer than we'd imagined, with shops, restaurants and apartments imaginatively covering a huge waterfront area which was formerly the city's harbour. It's a big draw for tourists but did not hold huge appeal for us other than as a place to source biltong!  Our last day in Cape Town was delightful...connecting with old friends (here on holiday from London) and meeting their SA family over a long lazy lunch in their Cape Town home. Thanks for a wonderful day, Nicky and Julian and Hugh and Erna.

Beginning Retirement

We are two weeks into retirement and now in our cosy Horsham apartment in the south of England. It only took a couple of days for our home contents at Waversesteenweg 149 to be stuffed into a container (thankfully 1 container took the lot) and we felt somewhat liberated waving the container goodbye as it set off for Rotterdam.  Our last morning in Belgium was memorable…inches of snow had fallen overnight making Hoeilaart look very pretty and as we headed for Calais in the car snow was falling heavily.

Leaving Brussels was sad for Gordon and he was touched by the number of calls, visits and messages from ExxonMobil colleagues all over the world - the network had certainly grown over the years.  He had a memorable “last run” in the forest with his good friend Frank; after 9 years of running together every Sunday morning, and as well as regular gym sessions and long distance walking, that was a tough farewell.

The past week in Horsham has brought challenges, mostly for Gordon….getting to grips with technology (new phone and laptop), cooking his first dish from a recipe, learning how to iron.  You might conclude that my life just got a lot easier, but this is not so, as I have become the help desk. But it’s fair to say that Gordon has approached all tasks with gusto.  Much of our time has been spent fine tuning the upcoming holiday in South Africa.  Even though we’ll be in the Cape region a month it’s been hard choosing places to stay.  In preparation for winery visits, for which the Cape is famous, we joined Horsham friends on a one day wine tasting course, but speaking for myself, I’m not sure much information was retained.

We’ve been to see our new house on the outskirts of Horsham, almost the finished article, but it will be mid March before we can take ownership and move in.  It’s a lot smaller than our Hoeilaart home and we cross fingers that the container contents will indeed fit in. We shall see. 

In a week’s time we fly off to South Africa and I think only then will reality of Gordon’s retirement kick in. Travelling between UK and Belgium has been a recurring journey for 16 years and it feels slightly odd that this isn't happening any more.  But we know there are many journeys to take, just different ones.

A Day of Goodbyes

Today was a milestone for Gordon - his last working day at ExxonMobil in Brussels. After almost 16 years of working in Brussels (and thirty years for the company), many colleagues and friends in the organisation have made contact to say goodbye and wish him well as he retires. Moving from UK to Belgium in 2000, we never expected to stay here this long, but our expat existence has been rewarding on many levels - work for Gordon, education for the girls and of course the friendships formed while we've lived in this culturally diverse city. Many of these good friends are no longer in Belgium, having returned to their home countries, but we've warned them we're heading their way in 2016.